


Familiar Magic

by damerey_knows



Series: Damerey Week 2018 [5]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Magic AU, Modern AU, Rey's a witch, Star Wars - Freeform, bb8 is a corgi, damerey week 2018, damereyweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 12:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damerey_knows/pseuds/damerey_knows
Summary: Prompt: Person A is a witch and has accidentally turned herself into a cat. Unable to do anything because of the lack of thumbs, Person A finds Person B and enlists their helpFor Damerey Week 2018 Day 5: Modern Au





	Familiar Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, sorry about this being so late, life happened (and by life i mean i spent last night watching the end of Daredevil which I highly recommend) 
> 
> Anyways, since i had this idea planned already i decided to go with it, hope you enjoy. The last two prompts should be up soonish, who knows at this point
> 
> Also this is a semi-follow up to my fic [A Dog and A Spell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14459220) although you don't need to read that one to understand what is happening here. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy <3  
> Jumana

“That should do it,” Rey muttered to herself as she threw a handful of cinnamon bark and frankincense into the pot on the stove. Dipping a thermometer into the mixture, she readjusted the temperature and continued stirring the roiling pot.

Running a finger down the old, yellowed page of her grandmother’s grimoire, mentally checking off the steps she’d completed for the potion. She’d been hoping to try a tranquility spell, possibly allowing her to reach out spiritually to Mother Nature and recenter herself. She’d been filled with nervous energy ever since she’d met Poe and B in the woods two weeks ago. Hopefully, this trance would help settle her spirit.

“Oh, one more thing,” she said as she reached for the jar of dried violets above the stove and threw in six petals before turning off the fire.

Rey took the potion into the living room and set it on the floor at the center of her circle.

Leaning over the steam emanating from the pot, Rey breathed deeply, focusing on the calming aroma, allowing it to pull her into  peaceful trance.

* * *

Poe woke early on Saturday morning to the sound of yowling coming from outside.

Groaning, he rolled over and buried his head under his pillow. His attempt to block out the cat was thwarted by BB’s responding barks from the kitchen.

“Why?” Poe grumbled as he threw off his sheets and got up. “Why today?” it had been a long week and Poe had been looking forward to sleeping in, but no, his chaotic little corgi couldn’t let him do even that.

Throwing a hoodie on over his pyjamas, Poe left the inviting warmth of his bedroom and shuffled to the kitchen where BB was barking.

“What is so urgent, buddy?” he asked leaning down to scratch BB between the ears and gripping his collar before opening the back toor. Sitting there, still mewling at him, sat a tortoiseshell cat.

“Umm, okay then,” Poe trailed off, more talking to himself than the cat.

The cat meowed once more before walking up to him and nuzzling against his leg.

Poe kneeled down to pet the cat. “You’re a strange one, aren’t you?”

The cat rubbed it’s face against his hand before putting its front paws on his chest and meowing loudly.

“What do you want?” Poe asked, exasperated as he pulled the cat off him by the scruff of her neck. In doing so, Poe had released BB, who was now sniffing at the cat, curiously.

The cat meowed again and rubbed its head under BB’s chin before darting into the house.

“Hey!” Poe yelped closing the door and chasing after it.

The cat raced into his living room then dashed between his legs. Poe tried to catch it, but every time he came close BB would bark or run into his legs. Apparently he thought this game of “Catch the Kitty” was the best fun.

Poe tripped over the living room rug as he chased the cat back downstairs and was sent sprawling onto the floor as the cat disappeared into the kitchen. As he stood up, Poe heard a loud crash and ran in the kitchen to see the cat sitting in a cloud of flour from the jar on his counter, which was now shattered on the floor. As he stared at the smug cat, the cat reached out a paw and traced the word “REY” into the flour.

“What?” Poe asked in befuddlement.

The cat tapped her paw against the flour word again, staring up at him with large hazel eyes, eyes that seemed to glow with white light the way Rey’s had that day in the forest.

“Rey?” he asked.

The cat meweled loudly and walked up to him to rub against his shins.

Poe bent to pick up the cat. Holding it up to the light, Poe asked, “Rey, what happened to you?”

The cat, of course, didn’t respond, just stared up at him with those unnerving eyes.

Poe sighed. “Okay,” he said, setting the cat back down on the kitchen floor. “I’m calling Leia.”

The cat let out a petulant mewel, but didn’t object as he walked back up to his bedroom to retrieve his phone.

Leia answered on the third ring.

“Did something happen?” Leia asked by way of greeting.

“Why must you assume something is wrong for me to call you, Auntie?” Poe asked, teasingly.

“Because if there is one thing Dameron men do, it’s find the most amount of trouble in the least amount of time possible.

“Are you still holding the zoo fiasco over my head, because I, personally, think fifteen years is long enough,” Poe responded, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’m sorry did you do anything else to rival that in the last fifteen years?”

Poe sighed, already knowing the road this line of questioning would take. “Look, Auntie Leia, this time it is one hundred percent not my fault.”

“Mhm, I’ll be the judge of that.” Leia’s voice sounded like she was fighting back a laugh.

Poe sighed and explained what had happened. “I don’t know, Auntie, is it really Rey?”

Leia sighed. “That girl, I swear.” Poe could almost hear Leia rubbing her temples. “Is she there with you now?”

“Yes,” Poe said, looking down at the cat by his ankles,

“Put me on speaker.”

Poe did as asked and knelt down, stroking his hand absently over the cat’s back.

“Rey?” When Leia’s voice came through the speakers the cat’s - Rey’s - ears perked up and she snuffled at the phone. “Rey, what did you do?”

At Leia’s question Cat-Rey let out a long, whiny meow.

“Poe, can you check her right paw? Rey has a moon shaped birthmark on her wrist.”

Poe set the phone down as the cat lifted up her front paw to show him the white patch of fur shaped like crescent moon on it.

“It’s her,” he said in the direction of the phone while Cat-Rey climbed up onto his lap and curled up in a ball.

Leia sighed. “I told her to stay away from that grimoire.” Cat-Rey purred loudly in his lap as BB sat down next to them, head cocked in curiosity. “Okay, Poe, Here’s what you need to do.”

“Wait, Auntie,” Poe interjected, hastily. “I’m not a witch. I can’t do anything.”

Leia laughed loudly. “Poe, how many times have I told you that you can do magic?”

Poe stared blankly down at his phone.

“Hundreds of times,” Leia said, answering her own question.

Poe groaned. “Auntie, this isn’t like guessing BB’s moods or guessing weather patterns. This isn’t even lighting a candle with magic. This is powerful and delicate.” Poe had never been good at magic. It had always been a feeling, like a sixth sense, something that gave him fast reflexes. For all Leia’s cajoling, he’d never had any real interest in mastering it.

“Poe,” Leia said, her voice cutting through his thoughts. “You have enough magic to do this. I won’t be home for at least another week, and the longer Rey stays like this the harder the transition back will be. Most of the spell is just throwing ingredients into a pot, anyways.”

At her words, Cat-Rey mewled up at him from his lap, before purring and nosing at his hand again, demanding more scratches.

Poe sighed. “Alright, what do I have to do?”

Leia told him how to work the spell, and texted him a list of things that he would need to get to finish it. “Remember, this is a finicky spell, so try to be as precise as you can.”

“Okay,” Poe said, standing up, letting an annoyed Rey drop onto the ground. “Sounds doable.”

“Let me know how it goes,” Leia said.

“Will do.” Poe hung up and walked towards his room.

“Mrrrraaaawww,” Rey whined, loudly.

Poe rolled his eyes. “I’ll be back in a few,” he called over his shoulder.

Just as he was closing the door to his room, Rey slinked through the gap.

“Uh-uh, nope,” he said, reaching down to grab Rey around the stomach. “I’m getting dressed, give me a few minutes.”

“Mrrrrwap,” Rey mewled, exasperatedly as Poe dropped her on the other side of the door

Closing the door, Poe turned to see Bee sitting on the bed. “Fine, gang up on me why don’t you.” He went to get dressed hurriedly, listening to the obnoxiously loud meowing of Rey on the other side of the door.

“Alright, I’m coming,” he said, finally opening the door again and walking past the yowling Rey to where his shoes were by the door, Bee at his heels.

Somehow he managed to get both animals into the back seat of his car, though Rey perched herself on the console between the front seats the second he turned on the engine.

* * *

After a quick stop at the grocery store, Poe, Rey and Bee were now standing in the middle of Leia’s kitchen.

“Alright,” Poe said, absently sorting through the pots to find a large enough one for the potion.

Consulting the instructions that Leia had sent constantly, Poe began making the potion, occasionally pausing to push Rey back onto the floor to keep from singeing her whiskers.

“One more thing…” Poe said, sifting some ground crabshell into the mix. “Okay, that’s done.”

Rey mewled from her seat on the countertop.

“Alright, now we just need a black candle and then you need to drink the potion,” Poe told her.

Rey looked down at the potion, which had turned a murky grey color and yowled again, clearly not happy at that prospect.

Poe laughed at her disgruntled expression. “Do you want to stay a cat forever?”

Rey turned to give him a withering glare before looking back at the pot.

Poe laughed and went to look for the candle.

After a quick scan of Leia’s living room Poe spotted the candle on the mantelpiece. He dug through the chest next to Leia’s desk and pulled out a piece of velvet with a casting circle imprinted on it.

He spread the velvet over Leia’s dining table and set the candle in the middle, lighting it quickly before going back into the kitchen to retrieve the pot.

“Come on,” he told Rey as he walked back into the other room. “Your legs still work, even if your thumbs don’t.”

Rey purred and rubbed against his ankles as he walked with the heavy pot into the other room.

Poe set the pot down on the table and lifted Rey up next to it. He filled a saucer with the potion and set it down in front of her.

“Mrrwwp?” Rey asked him.

“You need to drink that,” Poe said calmly. “Otherwise, I’ll never be able to understand what you’re trying to say.”

Rey looked at him with an aggrieved expression.

“Drink, I have to say this chant until you finish changing back.”

Rey grumbled but acquiesced.

As Rey drank her potion Poe began to stumble through the Latin chant that Leia had sent.

 

_Infectumque reddet, quod factum est_

_Restituere ordinem_

_Fascinatio delere orbem rigidum_

 

Poe looked up at Rey. She was staring at the potion, her tongue poking out between her lips. She’d been drinking some of the potion when Poe had begun the chant but now she was frozen, it almost looked like she wasn’t breathing.

Feeling a rush of panic Poe began chanting faster, his eyes racing along the words, hoping beyond hope that the spell was working correctly and he didn’t just petrify the cat.

Bee whimpered as a soft golden glow radiated from the candle, spreading out to cover fill the circle and blanket Rey in the light.

Poe closed his eyes as the light grew brighter. With one final flash Poe pushed himself back from the table.

“Well that went as well as it could have gone.”

Blinking away the spots in his vision, Poe looked back up at the table to see Rey sitting on it, back to human form, wearing nothing but a black shift.

“You’re back,” Poe said, righting his chair as he offered her a hand to get off of the table. “How are you feeling?”

Rey laughed up at him. “A lot better, though you need to remember to roll the ‘R’s, works best that way.”

Poe laughed nervously, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry about that. You don’t still have a tail or anything do you?”

Rey laughed and looked down at herself. “No, I think you did a fine job of fixing it. Thank you.”

Poe smiled at her. “Well, I couldn’t just leave you there. Especially not after you made such a mess in my kitchen.”

Rey blushed. “Sorry about that. I didn’t know how else to tell you.”

Poe laughed and leaned down to gather Bee’s leash. “Well, I’ll let you get re-settled.”

“Wait, Poe?”

Poe turned from the door. “Yes?”

Rey bit her lip, seeming to think something over. Quickly, she leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, for helping me today.”

Poe let out a breath. “Anytime, Sunshine,” he managed with a smile. He studied her face for a long moment. “You do make a cute cat, I must say.”

Rey laughed and rolled her eyes. “Hey, it’s not my fault that I didn’t translate Latin into Greek before translating it back into English.”

Poe gave her a long look, before laughing along with her. “Sure, Sunshine. We’ll go with that.”

Rey swatted at his arm before leaning down to pet Bee. “He’s such a smart dog. He knew immediately.”

Poe laughed. Looking down at a proud Bee sitting at his feet. “Yes, I guess he does deserve a few treats for that.”

Bee barked in agreement at that.

**Author's Note:**

> So what did you think? I'm still not 100% on the ending so I might come back and change it later but who knows. 
> 
> Also idk anything about Latin, so the incantation is just what appeared when i put this into Google Translate
> 
> "Undo what has been done  
> Restore the natural order  
> Erase the enchantment"
> 
>  
> 
> Jumana


End file.
